Well, to quote old Doc Brown, the mad but lovable small town scientist who traveled in time with Marty McFly in a now famous 1985 movie, we go “back to the future!”

Last year we produced one our strongest seasons of Community Connections, the series of public forums provided through a joint effort of Elon University and the Times-News. Our third year we tinkered with the format by devoting our entire season to discussions about the racial divide in America. Our three sessions — held during fall, winter and spring terms — were well attended and full of interesting points and observations. We even held a special Community Connections off the Elon campus in conjunction with groups in the Alamance County community who wanted to borrow our name and endorsement. The focus then was poverty and welfare and a vocal crowd filed into the Paramount Theater in downtown Burlington to take part.

So as we enter our fourth year, what do we do for an encore?

Well, as I said, we go back to the future.

This year we will return to a system for selecting forum topics that we used the first two seasons: We make a list of potential topics for combined community and campus discussion and will put them to a public vote over the next couple of weeks. Elon students, who return to campus this weekend, will be able to fill out ballots at the first College Coffee next week. Times-News readers will be able to vote online here.

Our group of organizers met over the summer at The Blend on Front Street in Burlington and developed a list of possible topics. Our group included Jon Dooley, assistant vice president for student life, dean of campus life at Elon; Brooke Barnett, associate provost for inclusive community and communications professor; Tom Arcaro, a sociology professor; and Jason Husser, a political science professor. We talked a lot about the current political climate and some issues here in Alamance County. After all, we want people from all over our area to attend, not just Elon students and faculty. Ideally, the discussions should be wide-ranging and include people of all political beliefs — not just liberal to moderate.

Here is the list we came up with.

Wellness in Alamance County

Objectivity in the news

#BlackLivesMatter movement

Early childhood education

Freedom of expression

Future of the Democratic and Republican parties

Gun violence in the U.S.

Role of government

One or two of these we’ve addressed before at Community Connections, particularly the issue of gun violence. I’m especially interested in any discusison about freedom of expression, something hotly debated on many campuses at the moment. What people believe the role of government should be is another interest of mine.

Ultimately, though, voters will decide. They’ve done a good job in the past. I know they will now.

Our fall forum is scheduled for Nov. 15 in McKinnon at the Moseley Center on campus. The usual start time is 7 p.m. Details about the size and role of the panel are still being working out but we do know our moderator will be Naeemah Clark, a professor in the School of Communications.